


the long way home

by emptypens



Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Not K-Pop Idols, Ambiguous/Open Ending, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 03:30:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14511597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emptypens/pseuds/emptypens
Summary: "Tough traffic, huh?""Yeah. Your girlfriend must be very worried."





	the long way home

**Author's Note:**

> there is a version of this on [wattpad](https://www.wattpad.com/user/emptypens).

With his forehead leaned against the cold car window, Jinwoo watched with uttermost boredom as the cars beside the school bus he was riding slowed to a stop. Seeing the situation that the vehicles were starting to become stuck in, he heaved a heavy sigh, knowing what was about to come: another wasted hour due to another heavy traffic jam. He was relieved that the students were already making their way home from school and not the other way around, or else, they would have all been screwed with a penalty due to tardiness issued by the officials, even if it was somehow unreasonable to punish someone for something that wasn't entirely their fault.

Slapping his hands on his lap as if they were his personal pair of drums, Jinwoo tore his vision away from the depressing sight to the sky through the frost-covered window, noticing the way the royal blue shades were starting to become darker and darker as the sun set down, with tinges of warm colors such as red and orange appearing among the clouds, and how small white specks of snow were falling down gracefully like a group of tiny ballet dancers. He smiled in a subtle manner, secretly thankful for whatever or whoever was out there for creating such a magnificent sight to see every day and every night.

"I might come home late again tonight," someone suddenly said, interrupting Jinwoo from his trance. "I know. I'm sorry. I'll try my best to make it up to you soon. I love you. Bye."

Turning his head to try and find where the voice came from, Jinwoo's eyes ended up landing on his seatmate, Kim Myungjun, a student who was two years older than him, therefore in a school level two years away from his. Their classrooms were only a few rooms apart, so they tended to come across each other in the corridor. The thing was that they were surrounded by their crowd of friends, thus distracted and not giving each other a single glance.

That didn't mean that he didn't know about his title of being the noisiest student in his batch. There were times where if you stay on the first end of the hallway, you could hear him screaming a set of incoherent words on the top of his lungs while standing on the other end, resulting to the people around him either laughing with him, at him, both, or neither.

_ He was a legend _ , said his classmates when they once talked about him.

On the contrary, Jinwoo didn’t think Myungjun, or MJ as many call him as, was a legend, but more of a mystery, because apparently, no one knows anything about him besides the fact that he was loud. He knew this because he had a friend in their batch named Kim Namjoon whom he talked to a lot whenever they came across each other.

On the first time Jinwoo and MJ walked each other by, Jinwoo had to ask Namjoon who he was. His response?  _ He was the noisiest kid in the world, and he still is _ . Nothing else.

He tried asking Namjoon’s friend (?), Jung Hoseok. He answered the same thing, which was surprising because Hoseok was one of MJ’s competitors in being loud, so knowing that he had just admitted that he was on a lower level than him was something.

It was a shame that no one knew, because MJ had caught Jinwoo's eye back then. It wasn't that they had many times with proximity, but he was sure that the boy was so beautiful that his beauty could be seen and felt from kilometers away. His face was similar to the one of a Greek sculpture; well-designed, well-done, and almost delicate. His plump pink lips were a gigantic plus as it added effect on his appearance, depending on how he shaped it to amp up his emotions.

Sometimes, he thought about how it felt to hold his face in his hands and kiss his lips.

"Tough traffic, huh?"

Reeled away from his deep sea of flashbacks and fantasies, Jinwoo blinked and noticed that the boy he had been looking at was already looking back at him with a smile slowly curving his lips. The former felt his fluttery feelings paint his chubby cheeks with the lightest and prettiest shade of pink on the color palette as he tried to tie his shit together and come up with a response without fucking up.

"Yeah. Your girlfriend must be very worried."

MJ tilted his head with a raised eyebrow. "My girlfriend?"

"Yeah. Your girlfriend. Didn't you talk to her around a minute ago?"

MJ laughed. "That was my mom, silly.”

"Oh," Jinwoo muttered under his breath, blushing bright red with the feeling of wanting to shrink in size stirring in his stomach because of embarrassment. 

Silence stretched between them in the matter of seconds, but MJ managed to cut it in the matter of a single moment by starting a conversation with Jinwoo, which surprised the latter a lot.

“A new year is coming around the corner,” MJ started, smiling as his stare shifted to the soft and snowy scene playing outside of the window beside Jinwoo. “Anything to say about it? Expectations, wishes, anything?”

Jinwoo fell silent for seconds. Half of the time, he wondered where the sudden interrogation came from. Other, he thought of his answer very well, wanting to impress the boy beside him.

“I don’t know.”

Impressive, indeed.

“I mean,” Jinwoo started to explain with a sigh, “this year, and the years before it--they weren’t exactly what you would call as  _ eventful _ , with the same things happening again and again every day. It sounds ironic, but it’s getting pretty tiring.” 

He grimaced. Was he really complaining to an attractive man that he officially-but-not-so-formally met? 

“I get what you mean.” Myungjun nodded, sending a beam of mixed emotions through Jinwoo--pride because he was understood him, guilt because of the same reason. 

“Relate?” Jinwoo asked, raising an eyebrow.

Myungjun looked at Jinwoo and smiled. “Quite. It’s indeed exhausting to walk through the same road over and over again, especially when you don’t seem to have a destination to go to in the first place. It becomes way too easy to lose motivation to stay on your feet.”

Jinwoo watched Myungjun’s eyes stray its way back to the window, probably going back to watching the snowflakes fall with a glint in his eyes that was less cheerful, more wistful. He was right. Kim Myungjun was no legend. He was a mere human who gets lost, like everyone else. Besides that, he was more than a loud mouth. He had a loud mind, too. That made him wonder what else he thinks about on a daily basis.

“But-” he spoke again, startling his seatmate- “when you still want to see what’s on the other side of the road, there’s nothing bad with going on, right?”

Jinwoo knew, from the way he forcefully lifted the ends of his pretty lips, that he was trying to cheer either of them up, probably even both. He smiled back, hoping that it was of any help. “Right. Besides, there could be things or people that we find along the way. Soon enough, we won’t even realize that we were still walking on the same old road, because they will make the journey more meaningful than the destination.”

Myungjun stared at Jinwoo, his eyes sparkling with what seemed like newfound admiration, making Jinwoo feel like his cheeks were being set on fire. He smiled more genuinely. 

“Right,” was all he said, and since then, the two have been sitting in silence and unknown comfort of each other’s company.

“Park Jinwoo, right?” 

Jinwoo’s faint smile faltered in shock. “How did you know?”

“Kim Namjoon and his...friend, boyfriend, whatever, Jung Hoseok. They tell me a lot about you.” Myungjun grinned slyly. “You didn’t strike to me as someone who wanted to know more about someone as strange as me.”

Jinwoo’s cheeks became ten times redder. How convenient it is for your crush to know that you are snooping up in his life and tell you so on your first actual encounter.

“Goodness, you look like you can heat up a continent with your face.” Myungjun chuckled before standing up. “I’d like to give it a try, but this is my stop.”

“Ah.” Jinwoo nodded, trying not to let his disappoint come through. He didn’t even notice how much time passed during their small talk.

“I don’t think I should let it all end here, though,” Myungjun said with another smile. “I hope you’re free this Thursday. Maybe we could get a cup of coffee--or juice if you’re not into that--and chat again, if you’re up for it.”

Jinwoo stared at Myungjun, then covered his surprise by clearing his throat and nodding again. “Definitely.”

“Sweet. See you then.”

Both boys came home with a ghost of a smile that night, with the hopes of their life finally changing course.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hello! sky here. 
> 
> thank you for taking the time to read this! 
> 
> check out my other stories on [archive of our own](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astaeria) and [wattpad](https://www.wattpad.com/user/emptypens).
> 
> follow me on my [twitter account](https://twitter.com/snowdinsunsets) and my [other social medias](https://skysite.carrd.co/).
> 
> have a decent day!


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